[Dravin]

Originally Posted by Soul_Searcher

Today we had a great presentation from our ex-Bishop who is a Family History expert, he does it for a living. I really enjoyed it, it gave me encouragement which is what it was supposed to do.

However, at the very end of the presentation he said that anything we do in this life is utterly FUTILE unless we do family history. He even quoted a scripture to confirm it, D&C 128:15

Looking up the scripture quoted it sounds to me as if it's speaking about the church in general. Basically if we as a church failed to do our family history and thus temple ordinances for the dead it wouldn't matter that the church was doing a lot of good in other areas it would be failing at what its supposed to be doing in a rather spectacular way. Though don't get me wrong, there is definitely some likening to oneself potential there.

Doesn't seem to me to be, "You didn't submit 1,234 or more names! I know you were the LDS equivalent of Mother Teresa, telestial kingdom for you!"

It seems there's so many things you have to do in the church to be 'saved'. Most people tell me 'do the best you can'. Well, what if my best isn't enough? It sounds more likely than not in most people's cases in that case. Will I have wasted my life?

As a practical matter your best isn't enough, that's why the atonement. As far as any failure to do enough family history (however one wants to define that) being some sort of unpardonable sin, I have yet to see that in any scripture (as opposed to some verses like the aforementioned talking about the church as a whole not doing any, or Malachi's comment about the earth being utterly wasted if nobody was doing family history and temple ordinances).

He may be an ex-bishop, that doesn't mean he can't be guilty of hyperbole, people tend to stress rather greatly what they have stewardship over, sounds like he's responsible to try to teach people about family history, I wasn't there so I don't know the exact nature of his comments but its possible he could have gone a little over while trying to stress things.

Kind like if I wanted to stress Home Teaching, I could point out its a commandment, I could point out that we need to know Christ to have eternal life, I can then point out that if we don't keep the commandments we don't know (or love for that matter) Christ. Then I could bring up the oath and the covenant of the priesthood. At the end I could leave people with the impression that if they don't get 100% home teaching (baring things beyond their control) they have no hope of eternal life, that is not doctrine.

I feel overwhelmed with the level of expectation placed on me as an individual.

We are commanded to be perfect, the good news? It's gonna take Christ and more than this life to actually accomplish that, God understands.